To heather Solomon/ Canadian news

Some answers about my art

• Why did you choose that particular subject?

From very young age I asked myself about the origin of life. I used to raise my eyes to the stars and wonder if we came from there. I try to paint what elevate my soul and spirit, galactic elements from deep space with the marvel of stars and galaxies.

• Did you intend any specific meaning to be read into your subject?

I am writing now a book that combines my art with words. The title is ‘where are we’, the subtitle is ‘proportions’. It is very hard to absorb the fact that the universe exists 14 billion years and that we are 26000 light years away from the center of our galaxy (a light year is about 5900 billion miles). The understanding of our smallness can put some proportions to our ego and earthly problems. this is connected to my signature of those two small white figures on the bottom of my paintings.
• Have you used symbolism?
In my early paintings of deep space I used to paint what I saw especially from the Hubble telescope deep space images. In my recent paintings I started to create my own galaxies and sometimes to add abstract figures that arose on the canvas. I try to keep those figures in a restricted area. I have no intention to load too much meaning on one canvas. The energy and marvelous shape and colors of the universe should speak for itself.
• Do the colors have any special significance to you?
The universe is dark. even the largest stars as big as 20 times our sun would look like tiny pale dots in a larger scale picture of the universe. It is very hard to give the impression for the universe vastness. I use tar as the dark element for the background and warm colors to describe the turbulence that is part of the galaxy core. I also use matter as jesso or shpachtel or medium to build the basic format of the painting.
• Why did you give it the title you did?
I don t have a final decision on this issue of names. on one hand I would like to name the painting after the direct source of inspiration like the andromeda, milky way or Magellan galaxies, on the other hand, the moment I put the first stripe, color or matter on the canvas it s not Magellan galaxy any more but my idea as how this galactic element should be presented, which is my translation of shape, color, size and brightness to the image or photo which in itself is a filter of the spectrum of light. So sometimes I use the name and more often lately I use the image I have in my mind while creating it.



• Why did you paint it that size?
You can paint a portrait or a human body In the real measures, in order to paint galaxies I need to use an almost infinite scale, for example in painting the milky way, one millimeter on the canvas is 100 light years in reality, so I use bigger canvases, I have a dream to paint galaxies on very big walls, I think the size of 100x100 meters would be perfect, but practicality you know is a tyrant enforcer.

• why did you select this mediums for your paintings?
I paint on the floor or on tables I don t use pedestal, this is because I use mixture of colors and techniques. The basic element is tar or asphalt, than I use combinations of oil and acrylic colors and on top I use special lacquers that are used for wood coating. This is one level, most of my paintings contain between 10-20 layers. Because I don t know anyone else that uses this technique I developed it by doing huge amount of mistakes, only later I discovered that some of those mistakes turned to be my best paintings, the mixture of tar, oil, acrylic and lacquers creates an unexpected forms, shapes and colors which resembles for me the unexpected and inspiring images from deep space.

Thanks
Ted barr